


a little more spine

by rensshi



Category: WayV (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drunkenness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23651425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rensshi/pseuds/rensshi
Summary: Hendery could do a million and one things if he had no fear.
Relationships: Wong Kun Hang | Hendery/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 114





	a little more spine

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiii i’ve been listening to a lot of alt-rock and early 2000s pop music like i'm a teenager all over again and that is the only excuse i had for writing this
> 
> [edit 25/11/20: changed the usage of chinese names in like 2 lines. if u have questions i have my [cc](https://curiouscat.me/fractalkiss) open]

Lucas wakes up with a horrible crick in his neck and a sluggish haze pushing his head down mattress-deep so that lifting his head an inch takes Herculean effort. The exhaustion that’s crept up on him since LAX means he’s now body-slammed with overexertion in Qingdao. That, and the other thing is Hendery’s weight half-draped over him, bony and limp. Lucas spreads himself out, starfishing so he can fumble around for his phone, an extra pillow, anything to use as a weapon. There’s movement by the bedside and a ghost hovering over him in the gray stormy light through the curtains.

“Heard he was out after his third can. Don’t even try,” Kun tells him, regarding the way Lucas tries to choke out a response. Kun is dressed already, having turned in early last night after a karaoke match in their hotel room. Just because he’s elderly at soul, doesn’t mean his body has to follow trying to drink like a horse, Yangyang said. “How do you feel?” Kun asks.

Lucas clears his throat and croaks out “Not bad.” Prawn crackers after Sichuan food was a mistake. Kun presses his lips together in concern. They’ve got a fansign tomorrow. “Thanks,” Lucas whispers at the pill container Kun shakes at him and a tumbler of water when he manages to push himself up. 

“You can just thank me for refilling the water. He said you might have been pushing it on tour.” Kun jerks his head towards Hendery's sleeping form and goes on, “You look at him like you might be spreading sick germs and all he’s giving back are cooties sleeping next to you.” Hendery stirs beside him.

“I claimed the bed first,” Lucas calls out to Kun exiting and shaking his head.

“Did someone say brunch?” comes Hendery’s rough voice.

“You were dreaming.” A short pause. “How long were you awake?”

Hendery’s not-bloodshot-and-clear eyes give it away before he admits, “Long enough to hear something about cooties.” Hendery’s already planting his feet on the carpeted floor and stretching. “Are you calling dibs on the shower? Actually, hold up, never mind—”

“Dibs,” Lucas exclaims at the same time Hendery says it, scrambling to his feet and trying to duck. A clean towel smacks Lucas square on his back anyway.

“You go,” Lucas relents. “You look like death.” 

Hendery’s eyebags are slightly puffy, sleep lines imprinted on his cheek. “I’m not hungover. I’ll live,” Hendery assures, pressing the heel of his palms on his eyelids. 

No hangover. Lucas gives himself time grabbing underwear and fishing out his toothbrush, thinking, any time now. But the room is silent.

Hendery's curled up, eyes closed and basking in the extra time to laze. "Hey, did something happen last night?" He asks suddenly.

Lucas heads into the bathroom before he can try to process what feels like annoyance and panic crawling up his neck, making his ears go warm. It's either he takes this in stride and save both of their pride like a real man. _Or._ Or, he can take the can of worms opened last night in stride too and face it, like a real man.

Lucas blurts out before he can think, “You might wanna check your phone," and shuts the bathroom door close on Hendery's bewildered face.

\--------  
  


It goes beyond having to point out that none of them can hold their alcohol very well, although Ten is kind of the exception to that; It’s only past his tipping point when he starts trying to eyefuck the person across him and peer at them in plain disgust when they parry by returning it.

Hendery watches the video taken through his own phone last night in twisted fascination:

Whoever was still up had been singing along to a Boyz II Men song that none of them knew and went ahead to butcher except Kun, who’s taken reign over the cordless mic anyway. The camera wobbles, by Hendery’s shaky hand, aims itself at Lucas’ face, red from giggling too much, cheeks rounded and shiny under the glare of the Macbook, hotel TV flashing the news on mute in the dimness. Lucas isn’t even drunk—the high he’d been riding was wrung out of the jet lag, body clock still on reverse from the past week in America.

Lucas shoves the phone gently out of focus, whines in protest but laughs, says for the hundredth time that he loves them all. Here, Hendery hears himself say, and his phone gets passed onto Xiaojun. They’d been eating fruit, sweet mandarins behind Kun. Hendery watches Lucas push a slice into his mouth, fingers lingering too long on Hendery’s face, his neck. From this perspective, Kun being the main focus with them shrouded in shadow and ghostly dim blue outlines, it looks strangely invasive. It’s hard to tell in the video because of how dark it becomes and the audio doesn’t catch it but Lucas says something when Hendery leans in towards his mouth, tipsy as fuck. Hendery completely misses but he sure does remember the collision and awkward bump of Lucas’ jaw against his teeth, mouth trailing down his neck instead, the skin there taut and hot. 

The screen goes completely black, there’s a piercing ad lib from Xiaojun and Kun still belting it out before it ends. There being consequences to this sort of thing getting leaked, or his phone getting hacked makes him tap the delete icon right away.

The other consequence is that he avoids eye contact within a one-metre radius of Lucas. Shrinks away when Lucas sidles next to him to snare the last piece of oily bacon between his chopsticks on the table for brunch after they’re showered. It’s like walking around cradling a cactus in a room full of balloons, and every brush of contact with Lucas and the heat of it when he’s next to Hendery makes his skin prickle. 

Hendery has only been vaguely aware of how he’s not very good at pretending everything’s peachy. He’s physically incapable of pretense from the way Lucas bombards him soon enough within the day when he’s playing a game on his phone, Sicheng and Xiaojun out of earshot in front of the bed and watching a mainland drama on television. 

“Did you find a video of last night?” Lucas asks, his voice cracking, and clears his throat like he’s trying to cough up a hairball. When Hendery woke up this morning, fuzzy out of his mind and so well-rested he couldn’t believe it thanks to all the drinks, the momentary paralysis he’d experienced was thanks to Lucas sounding like a bullfrog talking quietly with Kun. It was like a recurring nightmare come true. 

“What video?” Hendery winces inwardly (openly) at Lucas frowning at him, mouth opening and closing. “Do you mean—“

“Last night, yeah. Can I see it?” It’s an earnest question.

“It’s gone. I’m taking precautions and deleting questionable video material of what happens in our down time,” Hendery recites, determinedly keeping eye contact when Lucas’ stare only hardens. Hendery’s practiced this speech in his head while Lucas was in the shower earlier. He didn’t have time to think about improv when Lucas stepped out, smelling like Dove shampoo.

“So you remember,” Lucas says. 

Lucas drops his gaze, moves to plant himself next to Hendery on the bed and slide his gangly legs under the cool comforter. His knee bumps Hendery’s leg, makes Hendery’s heart jump uselessly along with Xiaojun moaning at the television _no,_ your _mother should have gone to Hell so she could have rightfully had you there._

“If it makes you feel better, it didn’t really look like much,” Hendery presses on. He backs up just enough to be able to say, “Thanks for stopping me.”

“I almost didn’t,” Lucas says, laughing a little. It doesn’t come out relieved, not quite. There’s a tense line to Lucas’ shoulders that reads fight or flight and a buzzing in Hendery’s head. "God, I almost let you do it," he says, laughing a little louder now.

"What the fuck," is all Hendery can say before Sicheng's hyena laugh at something on the TV screen pierces the room. Now the open can of worms are tipped over and the contents are on the damn loose.

  
  
  


Somewhere along the way to debut, Hendery didn’t have to be subjected as often to team-bonding activities with eighteen other guys in rotation on different days depending on who was bored enough out of their minds to join, or who didn’t have schedules. He entered the company when things were soon to be set in motion, where his supposed members flitted in and out; at first Ten and Sicheng became poltergeists during their promotion cycles, sticking their heads in the fridge at some ungodly hour of the night when they were seen and pretty soon Lucas had become one too. 

That stuttered out quickly when the official date for WayV’s debut was decided and team-bonding went further into getting scolded together more often for their diction in rapping, going out for coffee runs in between practice, and having Super Smash Bros tournaments in the dorm. Team-bonding also meant finding ways to battle the great chronic homesickness, and Hendery’s firm belief in spicy crayfish being able to do that meant developing an extra stomach at midnight for a second dinner, and watching Lucas inhale whatever of the food he can’t finish. 

There’s a moment that Hendery’s mind drifts back to occasionally. Months after moving in and finally being able to not make his conversational Korean sound abysmal—which, according to Kun, Sicheng and Renjun, was a good benchmark—meant he’d also taken to digging around aimlessly for whatever leftovers were there, brain still buzzing from early evening caffeine. 

He’d given up on sleep at 2 AM that one night. The friendly poltergeist had been Lucas, eating Oreo O’s in a bowl.

“Sorry,” he said, when Hendery asked him if that was the last of the milk. He pushed the bowl, mumbled, “Wanna share? I don’t drink all the milk.”

“Then what are you so tall for.” Hendery sat down for company, with a Strawberry Milkis that became too sweet for his liking two-thirds in and a tangerine in his fist that he started peeling. There was a small pile of the skin shredded already next to Lucas’ bowl. The tangerine Hendery had was the last one. Lucas insisted he could have it, since it was only fair, which didn’t matter because the milk is communal.

“Weren’t these a gift?” Hendery asked, mouth curling up at the way Lucas shifted in his seat. There’d been a note too with a small bag full of tangerines. An odd gift, (thoughtful, actually, instead of chocolates or novelty snacks when he looked back at it) but who knew what went on in the girls’ dorms and what they talked about, heads huddled together when it was their turn to use one of the practice rooms. The other guys wouldn’t shut up about it in the company building, which is how talk made it all the way to WayV’s dorm, the news carrier pigeon being Zhong Chenle. Lucas doesn’t even like tangerines all that much. So all Hendery could do is stare him down like _dude, why make yourself eat it?_ He’d thrown away the note too.

“She poured a lot into that note, the more I think about it. It just felt wrong to not have any or give it all away,” Lucas explained, mouth pressed together in a twisted expression from the sour acidity and a defiant look that said _dude, is it wrong?_

Of course not. There’d just been an awful lot of tangerine skin peeled for one person on the table that night. The kitchen seemed warmer that night, a lot more cosy than it should have been in the harsh winter season.

Maybe, out of impulse, he’d just wanted to see what Lucas would do. How much further he’d go just to indulge, how high he’d jump just to prove he can try something new and succeed while at it. Lucas harbours enough self-assurance that success seems more likely. Hendery used to have dreams before, like he’s climbing up a high tower, trying to get to somewhere and he doesn’t know what, but he’s following Lucas, who keeps an easy pace beside him. And once they reach the top Lucas sprouts scales and wings and the dragon Hendery has to fight and tame with Xiaojun’s fake Mjolnir is him. Or, he’s the one locked in a tower and Lucas busts the door down in shining armour, gets down on one knee to ask—fuck that, forget it. He’s stopped really wondering what those dreams meant a long time ago. Sometimes, when your co-worker is also a pretty good friend, overthinking is pointless.

Under the right kind of lighting, Lucas doesn’t even look exhausted at all. But after the flight to Bangkok, where it is hot and dry beyond their expectations even in January, he hurls himself into bed when they reach the hotel in a semi-feverish haze, the heat bringing him down without a fight.

Hendery sets the meds down, piles on the vitamins on the bedside table just like he managed to miraculously do in Qingdao.

“Don’t talk,” Hendery says, snorting at how miserable Lucas’ expression is. “Go to sleep.”

“This is what I get for being afraid of cooties.”

Hendery's face burns. “Jeez, just shut up.”

Lucas peels his cheek away from the pillow to roll on his back, body relaxing. “What would you do if you weren’t so afraid?”

“Is this related to cooties?”

“Uhhhhh no?” Lucas says slowly.

Hendery could do a million and one things if he had no fear. The problem would be not knowing when to stop. Fear is good, fear is needed. It keeps you safe. Fear of failure keeps them all in check. 

Fine. He can humour Lucas.

“What would Wong Yukhei do?” Hendery asks instead, even if he already knows. He knows enough of the fundamental core shit and what Lucas would do given this and that. Like what would he do if he won the lottery, or if he never came to Korea to do what they do? If he could save the world from evil then who would he save first, and what if you could save or have everything but not the girl? More of the kind of questions to fill in a blurry image of him during the years in which they didn’t exist to each other.

He pats down Lucas’ hair on the crown of his head, and the way Lucas peers blankly up at him, completely docile in weakness, reminds him of his dog at home.

“I wouldn’t stop you from trying anything weird the next time,” Lucas whispers. “Sorry,” he says when Hendery retracts his hand.

“It’s fine—don't be. Just sleep,” Hendery mumbles, swallowing down the lump in his throat and patting him one last time before he leaves.

  
  
  
  


“What would Wong Kunhang do,” Lucas starts, face flushed a healthy red from soju because this time _he’s_ tipsy as fuck, “If he wanted someone to kiss him?”

Hendery stares ahead like all the pathways to a maze he’s been wandering around in shows him a way out, an easy one. He’s been feeling that way since Qingdao. It’s throwing him on the edge because he’s never had to feel that way before with Lucas. Three stops later, they’re back in Seoul, drawn in a full circle.

“I need subtitles. Xuxi, what d’you say?” Yangyang grouses in Mandarin between them both at the kitchen table in their dorm.

“He probably said no more drinking,” Ten announces, appearing out of nowhere behind Lucas’ puffy face. “At least not out here. I’m on cleaning duty tonight so help make me look good.”

Somewhere after midnight with the background noise of a drama playing loudly from the other room, Hendery finally thinks he can answer, his stomach turning over and twisted as he's lying, slumped on his bed. Between Lucas’ head on his thigh, hair coarse enough that it brushes through the fabric of his thin sweats to feel it graze his skin and getting a decent view of the gentle bow of Lucas’ lips without being caught staring from this angle, he’s up and had it.

“Sober,” Hendery says out loud before he can stop himself. “I—I’ll only kiss people who are sober,” he clarifies, blood pounding ruthlessly in his ears when Lucas startles and drops his phone at the sudden outburst.

“What? Okay, there’s no evidence now but you started this,” Lucas says, his jaw and chin cutting into Hendery’s thigh as he speaks. 

Hendery huffs out a weak laugh. “I’m sorry?”

“No, you—” Lucas nibbles on his bottom lip, tongue peeking out to wet it. “That first time, you surprised me, is all.”

If it was Hendery who could have everything but the girl, he’d think he’d be fine. It’s not like he’s never given it thought—everyone wants a love so intense it could cross countries, sunk in so viscerally like lotus roots clinging on to the earth. There are crushes so bad that when they speak to you, it’s like something’s bloomed, petals clogging up your throat so you forget how to talk. 

Lucas pushes himself up on his arms, sits up so he’s somewhat level with Hendery’s eyes. He’s not drunk anymore. “In theory, I wouldn’t stop you,” he tells Hendery.

"Just in theory?"

Lucas raises his eyebrows. Hendery inhales so he knows his lungs are clear, his throat hollow, free. This is so not a crush. But he still can’t find the fucking words for a response. How high can Hendery jump trying to do something new just to prove he can?

He leans in, fully conscious of the soft brush of exhale and the way Lucas’ shoulder shifts underneath his hand when he moves closer and places it there. His eyelashes flutter close against his cheek when he meets Hendery, Lucas' hand hot on the back of his neck. It's a little clumsy, there's teeth in the way. Lucas huffs against his mouth, like he isn't satisfied.

Lucas angles himself better for a proper kiss, and Hendery gives in with his mouth parted already, white noise in his brain. Hendery's thought about it in the days leading up to this; that Lucas probably wouldn't half-ass it, would keep kissing slow and deep until it's a furnace in the space between them. Maybe he'd close that distance too, hand firm on the small of his back, one playing the hem of his shirt. He's thought about the implication of where his hands would go if they went any lower, and under fabric. 

There are voices outside. Ten sounds like he's finally finished cleaning up, after procrastinating with Pokemon.

Hendery thumps Lucas on the chest, hard enough so he's pushed away off balance with a gasp. Lucas has rolled off the bed by the time Ten opens the door.

"Hello," Hendery practically yells, heart pounding with his whole being. Yangyang shouts _hi_ back at him from inside the other room and Ten closes his eyes. He looks over at Lucas and his awkward sitting position on the floor. If he's read the room then he doesn't show it. Fuck Ten, honestly.

"You wanna camp out here tonight?" Ten asks Lucas.

"No no no no no," Lucas says quickly. "It's fine." He glances back at Hendery, wide-eyed and bright. "I'll just, I'll stay a bit longer."

They leave an inch of space between each other on the floor. Ten minutes into this show they're watching on Lucas' phone, the rush of adrenaline's trickled down and every brush of contact Lucas makes with Hendery only brings out an infinitesimal ache now. But he smiles easy, warm with a gentle afterglow when Lucas snickers at the screen, drapes his foot over Hendery's ankle.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [like a lighthouse, a reminder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26440606) by [plotdevice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plotdevice/pseuds/plotdevice)




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